


Army of You

by KoiLungfish



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12101217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoiLungfish/pseuds/KoiLungfish
Summary: Megatron/Starscream PWP.





	Army of You

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Army of You  
> Author: Koi Lungfish  
> Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations from The Transformers [(c) 1986 Hasbro, Ltd]. Used without permission. Text (c) 2003, Koi Lung Fish [Mark of Lung. All Rights Reserved.]  
> Continuity: G1 cartoon.  
> Feedback always welcome.

"Starscream!" Megatron roared. "You wretched, blundering traitor!" He throat-pressed his Air Commander against the wall, gripping so hard his fingers left deep dents in the flexible metal. Starscream clawed at the tyrant's hand, head twisted askew, pedes scraping against Megatron's shins as he sought leverage. The tyrant could feel the panic and the fear of his hunter in the shift and pulse of the energy fields that radiated from his armour. "Your insubordination is exceeded only by your persistence in defying me, your insolence alone outweighs your meagre worth and your attempts to undermine my authority defy numbering!"

"If you were capable of producing a half-credible plan, I _might_ consider following it!" Starscream rasped in return, striving to pry night-black fingers from his neck. Megatron's dire intent poured from that dark hand, his black aura weaving through Starscream's energy fields. "Instead, you waste our time and resources on ridiculous gambles and half-witted weapon tests! If _I_ were leader here -"

" _That_ will never happen," Megatron snapped, squeezing the Seeker's throat until he could feel the ridges of the aspiration conduits pressing through the plating. "You will never lead the Decepticons. Only a herd of weak-minded idiots would follow a reckless fool like yourself!"

"Weak-minded idiots such as your loyal followers," Starscream said, with venom on his tongue. "Those moronic mechanoids you call warriors have less brain between them than I have in my afterburners!"

"Even as I crush your worthless vocal processor, you continue to defy me!" Megatron pinned the traitor against the wall with his body, pinioning his limbs.

Starscream shrieked, a ragged noise of frustration and rage, and - hawk straining at the creance - raked him with optics maddened by captivity, wherein dark spots of bloody murder wheeled, and panted hatred.

Megatron consumed the sight, consumed the sensation of feeling Starscream against him, energy fields intermingled that they felt freely of one another's emotions, and breathed, "If I had five more like you, then the universe would already be mine."

With that dark intimacy, he closed the gap and crushed Starscream's mouth with his own, relishing the grind of armour against armour, the _clank_ of lips meeting that muffled Starscream's snarl of protest, and the screeching contact of facial dermaplating as smooth-polished integument rasped against cerametallic alloy. Fields of emotion, borne on radiant energy-senses, tangled and combated like fields of halberds glinting under princely banners. Sparks burst from their mouths, struck by each lunge of their cast-iron kiss, their test of metal; strength of neck against strength of neck, will against will, seeking to dominate the other.

Starscream ceded; Megatron tasted feigned submission that slid down his throat as if it were victory and seized the Seeker against himself, his prize possession held tight to his chest. He felt the vibration of Starscream's fuel-pump and internal generators, the fierce vivacity of his energy fields, _tasted_ Starscream with his whole body. With his glossa, he tasted deep of Starscream's mouth, savouring the fear, the rebellion, and the traces of high-octane jet fuel. The Seeker bit down hard, seizing the intruding sensor between strong mandenta, and thrust against the wall with all limbs, bearing them both down to the ground with a _boom_ echoed in sequential _clank_ s as Megatron's fusion cannon escaped the fray. The traitor savoured the wound for a moment, tugging and chewing at his commander's offended sensor, and got a groan of pain for his efforts. Megatron allowed Starscream his moment of supremacy, then reached up and laid his hands upon the Seeker's limbs, and felt him twitch in fear at the fell intent those hands reported.

Starscream released Megatron's glossa and reared back, proud and aloof, the twin barrels of his null-rays settling upon Megatron's faceplate. A chill silence bloomed, black flower, as death blossomed _in potentia_. Megatron's energon dripped from Starscream's mouth and trickled like lover's fingertips across his lips and chin to drop lurid prints upon the tyrant's chest.

"Cunning," Megatron acknowledged, and slowly drew the back of a black finger down the sleek amber of Starscream's canopy; it sang like steel beneath a whetting blade. "Even in defeat, you are still treacherous."

"What good is a Decepticon who accepts defeat?" Starscream replied, every drop of spite and pride in his voice mingled with Megatron's life-blood. "Unlike some of the honourable fools _you_ call warriors, _I_ know the value of deception."

Megatron's response was a wordless sound, a great deep rumble that resounded through his entire frame and shook the floor: a vast purr from the throat of an ancient lion. Starscream shivered as the sound caressed his limbs more thoroughly than hands could ever touch him, and a little cry escaped him - no mere gasp, but the cry of a lioness stirred by the veldt-king.

"If but a third of the Decepticons possessed a mere quarter of your spirit then Cybertron would have been ours long ago," the lion purred, and his voice was the rasp of his rough tongue upon the lioness' nape. Optics narrowed; the hunter flushed with praise, the king deliberate in his attentions. "After all, who but the mighty Starscream is fit to rule the skies of Cybertron?" Megatron continued, slow and soft, watching Starscream's optics glaze dreamily. The Seeker, so used to harsh words and ill use, was quick to warm to praise; the lioness grew willing beneath the courting tongue. "Could there ever be a more fitting tyrant of the firmament?"

"Oh, go on," Starscream sighed. For all the spite that threaded his tone, for all the remembered abuses, he had for so long measured himself against the tyrant, and had so oft been found wanting, that such approval was a feast for his ego. So sweetly lauded, the hunter weakened to the beguilement of the lion's tongue. "You missed your calling, Megatron - sycophancy becomes you."

Megatron allowed a small chuckle to escape him, a throaty sound of ashes and of cinders, the lion's tongue a soft herald to the white-fanged grasp to come. "Yes, you are indeed splendid, traitor, fit as you are," and his voice deepened to from the purr of a suitor to the growl of the veldt-king, "only to grovel at my feet!"

The lion sprang; the lioness, surprised, was borne to the floor, all attempts at offence brushed away. Megatron forced Starscream down upon his back with the crash of denting armour and the resounding _thrumumum_ of quivering wings. The hawsered arm and shoulder strove against the steel-sinewed thigh and back, but down came the hand, black as doom; the lioness, grasped by the neck, felt the weight of the lion upon her.

A moment of stillness came; the veldt-king held his hunter beneath him, all the power of life and death in his grip. Slowly, the black hand loosened its killing choke; slowly Starscream's fingers unclenched from Megatron's flank and back-cannon, and slowly Megatron's hand relinquished its grip of Starscream's shoulder. Slow as glaciers, inevitable as gravity, they sank together; lips met as if enchanted by magnetic forces, and where hands had grasped in anger now they clasped for other reasons. Again, the standing fields of electromagnetism and radio pulse communicated emotions and desires unspoken and unneeding of speech.

"I should have you _cloned_ ," Megatron said, and once again assaulted Starscream's mouth with his own. Slick with energon, the abrasion was muted to a low scream of alloys in friction. Tensor-cables twitched beneath dermaplating and high-sensitivity contacts registered dangerous pressures. Mouth opened to mouth in hunger; the heat-blast of internal generators, and the vapour of salivacid, seared the ectodermis of their lips so that every kiss bore blisters. _[A hundred Starscreams - the universe alone would not be enough to satisfy such a breed! I would have an army of you ... my traitor!]_

_[Not even in a hundred thousand of me would you find one loyal subject,]_ Starscream replied, wrapping both hands around Megatron's head and dragging him closer, to assail with savage appetite his leader's bleeding mouth. Megatron replied with equal viciousness, as gravity had its way with his damaged glossa, and Starscream took it into his mouth. For a moment of feign-tasting consent, he soothed the sensor with his own glossa, teasing away pain - and then, drawing Megatron deep into his mouth, seized the sensor between his mandenta and began to chew it off. Megatron uttered a throated sound of pain as he allowed his traitor to tear out his tongue, a sound that encouraged Starscream to twist it as he tore, and deepen the growing wound. Energon flowed in gouts, and lesser fluids also. With a final wrench and twist, Starscream ripped Megatron's glossa right out.

Megatron drew back, mouth a-drip with liquid power, and panted in rapture as Starscream slowly crushed the severed sensor in his mouth, crunching it measure by measure into broken parts and swallowing it down. The wounded mouth rose into a glowing smile at such audacious betrayal.

"Why can't the rest of the army be more like you?" Megatron gasped, words falling like the spill of energon from his mouth. "The Autobots would never stand a chance!"

"Because the rest of the army thinks you're an invulnerable demigod," Starscream smirked, sucking the last cables of Megatron's sensor down his throat.

"And you don't," Megatron smiled, leaned down to nuzzle the Seeker's slick cheek. His thick-armoured face scraped Starscream's heat-resistant plating, gouging furrows in the cerametal alloy.

"Not in the slightest," Starscream replied, pressing into the caress as his internal repairs resealed the rips in his ectodermis.

"No other Decepticon would even dare to think of such a thing, much less attempt it."

"No other Decepticon would believe you'd be so stupid as to put your glossa where they can bite it off," Starscream sneered. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you _liked_ the pain."

"It's not the pain I enjoy," Megatron avowed, every word costing him a gout of fuel, "but the taste of your potential for destruction and cruelty."

"So why _me_?" Starscream asked, smug with surety in the answer and seeking only to hear again the words that beguiled him down from midheaven's throne. "Why not ... Shockwave? Is he exempt from this simply because he can't bite?"

"Shockwave has his uses," Megatron breathed. "He is efficient, ruthless and tireless, but he doesn't have your ambition. I have yet to find another who has your blend of cruelty, persistence and skill ... and your utter lack of morality and honour."

"You make it sound like a defect!" Starscream laughed. "If the occasional grovel is what it takes to prolong my life, why should I not bend my neck?"

"Much as it pains me to admit it, you have more sense in your head than far too many other Decepticons." Megatron's smile grew cold and cruel. "What use is a soldier ready to die for the cause? I'd sooner have one who'll do anything to live than ten willing to martyr themselves."

"Well, Soundwave ought to fit that bill for you."

"Soundwave?" Megatron spat the name. "He may be useful, but he is a coward to the core."

"Forgive me my ignorance," Starscream said, words slippery with sarcasm, "but I fail to see your distinction between survival and cowardice."

"It is not Soundwave's actions I call cowardice, but his motives," Megatron replied coldly. "He seeks power, but fearing for his own life, hides in my shadow, the wretch. Only a fool would be satisfied with the shadow of power - let him hide in the dark like the coward he is. He is nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded as I choose."

"You know he's almost certainly listening to this?" Starscream snickered.

"Why should I care?" Megatron replied. "I fear no traitor so weak and afraid he must hide his intent. Let him listen - he will get nothing from it. Perhaps he may even learn a lesson or two."

"What lesson?" Starscream asked swiftly, curious and puzzled, then laughed, "Certainly not that you enjoy my ... company. The stories they tell of us ..." He laughed again, and Megatron chuckled with him.

"Let them whisper and wonder," he rumbled. "If they're too stupid to figure it out for themselves, let them believe whatever they will. Perhaps, if they remember Batrachius, they might realise their stupidity."

"Oh, Batrachius!" Starscream made a noise partway between a laugh and a sigh. "What an idiot _he_ was. Even if I _was_ your consort, I don't doubt you would've left me to his mercy."

"A captured Decepticon is a fool who deserves whatever his captors do to him," Megatron agreed gravely. "A Decepticon who overcomes his captors is worth welcoming home." He looked down at Starscream, appreciating the slather of his own energon across the silver face. "Besides, what fool could mistake you for an ornament? You were not made to wait upon my whim and smile."

"Batrachius was a fool," Starscream replied simply.

"And his idiocy was rewarded with the death he so richly deserved," Megatron concluded. "Even when you turn upon other Decepticons, your deadliness remains useful."

"Not that deadly," Starscream grumbled. "One of us isn't trying hard enough."

"Then it must be you!" Megatron snapped in return. "I've spared your life because you are dangerous, and a dangerous Decepticon is a useful one. Your failure to destroy me only proves that you are not half as deadly as you think you are!"

"My failure to destroy you is a mistake I intend to rectify at the next opportunity!"

"Then I shall ensure you _get_ no further opportunity," Megatron responded with a dark smile.

"Scrap iron and rust!" Starscream swore. "If you wanted absolute security you would've destroyed me long ago, along with the rest of the traitors."

"If I wanted absolute security, I would wall myself up in Darkmount, and hide behind legions of drones, and never show my face in battle," Megatron rumbled softly. "Who wants to be safe? Security is for Autobots and cowards. We won't win this war by playing _safe_."

"We won't win this war following you, either!" Starscream shrieked. "You've thrown away a hundred opportunities to crush the Autobots."

"If I have, it is because those under my command are too stupid and too obedient to challenge me when I make a true mistake!" Megatron bellowed. "For you, traitor, I will admit I make mistakes - such as keeping you alive - but for those who think I am infallible, let them learn the hard way."

"You're deliberately prolonging the war just so that the rank and file will doubt you! You're mad!" Starscream stared at him, disgusted.

"You _idiot!_ " Megatron roared. "Have you heard a single word I've said in the last _hekavorn_? I do not want an army of obedient martyrs! I do not want a race of Decepticons enslaved to my whim, lacking the wit and will to betray me! I want a race of murderers and traitors, an army who will seek out power for themselves, not wait for me to guide them to it! I will not lead the Decepticons to glory - I will have them raise me up on their hands as they reach for glory themselves!"

"You are mad," Starscream murmured, "and I must be mad too, because I'm starting to agree with you."

"Good," Megatron interrupted, crushing Starscream's words with the weight of his voice, "because one of you isn't enough."

"Perhaps if you stopped using me as your personal target, you might entice a few more out of the ranks," Starscream sneered, knowing the response already.

"Stop being deliberately stupid!" Megatron snapped, exasperated. "You attempt to derail my plans and undermine my authority, and you expect not to get a few dents for it? Use whatever corroded scrap that passes for your brain-module, Starscream!"

"You are the most contrary lunatic I have ever had the misfortune to meet!" Starscream shrieked, glaring at Megatron with an expression of deep rage. "You praise me with one side of your mouth and curse me with the other! You need two heads to keep up with all the contradictions you spout!"

Megatron groaned, shaking his head. "You're an idiot, Starscream," he grumbled. "For all your scant worth, you can be stupendously _dense_ at times."

"Speak for yourself," Starscream replied bitterly. "You're the one who can't decide whether he wants loyalty or treachery."

"I despair of you, Starscream," Megatron said, resting his chin on his hand. "I ought to demote you for persistent and purposeful dim-wittedness."

"I'm sure that's not necessary," Starscream pleaded, instantly changing his tone. "There's no need to disrupt the balance of _power!_ " The word came as a gasp as Megatron bit down on his buccal ridge, leaving a deep dent.

"And you so like power, don't you?" he whispered, feeling Starscream shiver at his words, feeling the sudden burst of hunger from the Seeker beneath him at the mere word. "Utterly and without reserve, you desire power."

"I desire _your_ power," Starscream breathed against the tyrant's cheek, then licked a strip of energon from his face. The low-friction alloy of the sensor rasped with pleasing sleekness against Megatron's armour plating. "And I _will_ take it from you."

"Dream on, Starscream," Megatron replied in hard voice. "For all your commendable treacheries, you will never take what is rightfully mine."

"Rights or no rights, I will destroy you!"

Megatron raised himself just enough to look Starscream in the optics. "Keep trying," he smiled icily. "You'll never succeed, but your efforts will not go unnoticed ... nor unrewarded."

"If you call being shot and beaten a reward," Starscream sneered, "then it is a reward you can keep for the Autobots!"

"Idiot!" Megatron struck Starscream across the face, hearing the tensors in his neck sing in report. "All your power is mine to take from you if I choose!"

"As is yours!" Starscream shrieked, and thrust his stiffened arms at Megatron, trying to force him off. Megatron swiped his arms aside and pinned the Seeker to the floor, ignoring the screech of protest and the screech of armour grinding floor-plate. He leaned down, smiling as he felt Starscream writhing beneath him in vain and shriek-spiked attempts to break his grip. The Seeker's slick plating clacked and clanked off his own hardened hull, sending chips and scrapings of red and silver clinking to the ground.

"There is no more power for you! You are Air Commander of the Decepticon Battle Fleet - that is more than enough for you. I am Decepticon High Commander, and you are mine to command!" Megatron said harshly. "Accept it!"

"Never!"

The tyrant's face tore into an awful, bloody smile. "Is there no limit to your defiance?"

"None," Starscream replied savagely, managing with great and painful effort to lift his arms a scant espe from the floor. Megatron relinquished his forceful grip and sat back, allowing the Seeker to prop himself up on his wings, where he lay panting and defiant. "As long as I operate, I will never give up."

"Rebellious even in the face of destruction," Megatron smiled, stroking Starscream's dented cheek; hard fingers made a sound like cracked iron bells upon the silver face. "It's a shame there's nothing left to reward you with that you can't take for yourself ..."

Starscream smirked slightly, optics closing as he savoured the unadulterated caress. "Maybe if you'd accept me as co-regent ..."

"Never!" Megatron snarled, and the stroke became a vicious cuff that tolled like a passing bell. "I share power with nobody!"

"Selfish, antiquated brute!" Starscream screeched, spitting fragments of shattered mandenta.

"What kind of an idiot would I have to be to take _you_ as my co-regent?" Megatron said hotly. "Accepting Hexavis as co-regent was bad enough, but _you_ ..."

"Well," Starscream breathed with a satisfied smile. "We both remember what happened to Hexavis."

"Yes," Megatron smiled, pleased by the memory. "It must've been unbearable for you to see him take half my power through such a crude and blundering coup."

"I got my satisfaction when he deposed and imprisoned you," Starscream smirked. "Just a shame you got free before I was finished with him. He was an idiot not to kill you when he had the chance."

"You did a very thorough job of taking revenge for me," Megatron chuckled, amused by Starscream's sudden expression of venom. "Just a shame you didn't leave enough of him for a trophy."

"We would never have been able to agree on who got to keep it, anyway," Starscream dismissed, shrugging the matter off like raindrops from his wings.

"Never," Megatron agreed, leaning forward to kiss Starscream. Congealed energon skinned their lips in softness, and no sparks burst as they renewed their test of boundaries and of strength with a languid, patient air. They clung together, limbs clinking with their slow movements, fingers tick and tapping and scraping against ectodermic sensor relays scrambled by the close intensity of their power-fields. _[But to see you murder him was a splendid sight enough.]_

Starscream uttered a slight noise of pleasure, optics dimming. Dark hands savoured the edges of his intakes, taking memories of the angles and the planes then traced the sensor-pathways down into his body, and he shivered as his sensor-clusters were deranged by the power absolute. _[Keep going, keep going,]_ he muttered, running his fingers along the smooth barrel of Megatron's back-cannon, drinking with fingertips and palm the deadly energies that pervaded the construct.

_[Why should I flatter you?]_ Megatron said smoothly, his hands gliding patternless across the Seeker's wings; edge and plane, the sleek fields of alloy were alive with sensation and response. As his fingers described arcs and curves across the quivering wings, the interference of his power-field sent Starscream's carefully calibrated aerial sensors reeling in confusion and delicious malfunction. The Seeker began to tremble, optics shutting down as the overload of contrary sensation transported him. _[You don't need me to tell you how cunning you are, or how many Autobots you've killed, or how much your subordinates fear and respect you, for your skill in battle as well as your great intelligence.]_

Starscream managed to stifle a moan, and replied, _[I don't need you to tell me anything ... but you know as well as I how good this feels.]_

_[Oh, but naturally,]_ Megatron murmured, loading on the charm, but not denying that he could feel Starscream's stroke-winged rapture reflected in the intertangled energy fields. _[After all, a being as handsome and sophisticated as yourself must be used to well-earned praise, and being stuck here with these fools who don't appreciate your intelligence and flawless design is such a waste.]_

"You really are too good at this," Starscream mumbled weakly, resting his head against the floor, overwhelmed by praise. He was used to harsh words and harsher hands, but when the tyrant's touch grew tender, his own skin grew thin and his defences weakened. "You could talk that sanctimonious idiot Prime into serving you if you put your mind to it."

"Interesting plan," Megatron mused, lifting his hands from Starscream's wings before the Seeker experienced a critical overload and eliciting a whine of disappointment as he did, "although I'd rather see him broken at my feet."

"Oh, but surely _you_ appreciate the irony of having the supreme Autobot as a willing slave of the Decepticons?" Starscream chuckled. Megatron rumbled at the thought, optics narrowed as he stared off into the possibility.

"A fine irony, but one I've tasted often enough before," he said. "Prime is too dangerous to be trifled with."

"And I'm not?"

"Shut up," Megatron growled, and kissed him viciously. Starscream's words of protest were smothered by the tyrant's hungry mouth, his limbs constrained by dark rapacious hands. Bursts of energy flared from Starscream's wings as his deranged power-fields restored themselves to order, sending shudders of sensation through both bodies, one entangled aura.

Starscream reached up and ran his fingers across the back of Megatron's head with a _click-click-click_ of fingertip across audio-sensor module, tracing the rim of his helm up toward his face. Megatron growled at the deafening reports inside his head, then thrust his face into Starscream's palm. The Seeker traced a fingertip across the crisp edge of Megatron's cheek-seam and tentatively brushed his lip, testing another boundary, another measure of dominance and submission. When no rebuff came, Starscream touched again, now a confident caress of the cruel mouth, the two balancing upon a razor's edge of permission and control. Megatron's lips parted to him and he took the challenge, risking his fingers between the lion's jaws. Starscream toyed with the stump of the tyrant's glossa as Megatron sucked at his fingers, thin streams of energon and salivacid leaving pale burns as they trickled down wrist and forearm.

Then the king claimed back his command; Starscream flinched as Megatron's strong jaws clamped down on his third and fourth fingers, and hissed as he tried to tug his hand free of the vice-like bite.

_[Afraid to loose a finger or two, Starscream?]_ the tyrant mocked.

"No point in sustaining needless injury," the Seeker snapped, tugging harder, but Megatron's neck and shoulders braced like foundations, and he budged not an espe.

_[The rational of a coward,]_ the king replied, tightening his bite; they both felt the dermaplating begin to buckle. Starscream grimaced.

"What kind of an idiot calls reckless wounds cowardice?" he shrieked. "Just because your armour is as thick as your cranium -" A scream bit off his insult as Megatron bit off his fingers, casually chewing them and watching with amusement as Starscream clutched the spurting stumps.

_[What kind of an idiot puts his fingers in my mouth when he knows I will bite them off out of principle if not repayment?]_ Megatron asked coldly.

"The kind of fool who knows fingers can be easily replaced," Starscream breathed, "and chances to see you submit are harder to find."

Megatron loomed upon him, vast as the night and bright as fear. _[But you fear me.]_

Starscream's optics fixed upon his, all a-glitter with terror and awe and hatred. "Always."

Megatron chuckled, swallowing the last remains of Starscream's fingers. "How many idiots have I had to kill because they refused to admit their fear of me?" he mused, taking Starscream's wounded hand in his own and drawing it back to his mouth. Unable to lick the torn stumps, he chewed gently at the wound, drawing the stub of his glossa across the oozing fuel-lines. Their fuel mixed in his mouth, running back into systems, running openly across Megatron's face, Starscream's wrist, and dripping across both their bodies.

"I certainly haven't been counting," Starscream murmured, woozy with pain, fear and delight. "Although I'm sure the Decepticon race has benefited for the removal of such morons." His fingers twitched against Megatron's faceplate; sparks crackled across his finger-stumps, glittering from hand to glossa. "What kind of moron or hero could fail to fear _you_?" Megatron released Starscream's hand from his mouth and leant down to cover the Seeker, binding their energy fields together again.

"You have some sense, for all your stupidity. You fear me as openly as you defy me, and that is why I let you live," Megatron murmured, and Starscream licked the energon from his lips as he spoke, mumbling kisses spattered with light. _[All your schemes and wickedness, all your treacheries and lies - you are the very antithesis of the Autobot, the very image of a Decepticon ... you foolish, impulsive,_ magnificent _traitor ...]_

The scant scrape of lip upon lip was muffled by the shed wetness. Starscream fawned at Megatron's mouth with hungry lips and glossa, seeking ever more of his vitality, and the tyrant allowed the traitor to pander on with soft kisses and pleading sighs, until Starscream's impetuous hunger drove lick to nip to bite. Then Megatron forced him down with a hard kiss, handing down dominion from above, and allowed his own energon to flow from his torn gape into the gullet of his ever-hungry traitor. Starscream nursed upon the bleeding stump of Megatron's glossa, suckling at his mouth, but he did not dare his own sensor between those greater, stronger jaws.

_[Coward,]_ Megatron whispered as Starscream fed upon his wound. _[Too afraid to lose your own glossa?]_

_[Not cowardice, Megatron - survival]_ the Seeker replied, biting his leader tartly upon the smarting stump and tugging, as if he could eat his commander inside out.

Megatron lifted his dripping face from Starscream's and sneered a lurid snarl. "No less a fool is he who allows his treachery to be uncovered!"

"Fear not the treachery you know, Megatron, but the treachery unseen," Starscream replied, voice sharp with anger, as he pushed at Megatron, trying to shift the great bulk off him. "I am not the only traitor in your army nor do I have but one missile to my wing!"

"I fear no treachery, especially not from cowards," Megatron yielded not to the sky-light hands that sought to lift his bright-beaded body. "Nor from fools such as you!"

"You antiquated relic!" Starscream shrieked. "You waste all our energies on foolish assaults when you should seek to strike for the weak spots our enemies conceal!" Thus uttered, faster than Megatron could process, the Seeker grasped him by the rim of his helm and gave his head such a sharp and sudden wrench that internal structures snapped apart and lubricant gushed down his neck.

Megatron lost all sense of his body as the delicate synapse-cables tore within him, and Starscream turned them both over, so that again he bestrode his commander like a high tower above a dark sea. Again, his guns rested close to Megatron's widened optics, and the bloody mouth of the traitor became crooked with a sly and savage smile.

"Enough!" Megatron choked in a voice as lacking strength and command as was his rack-necked corse. "I beg of you Starscream, spare me!"

"Much as it pleases me to hear you beg for your life, _Mighty_ Megatron," Starscream crooned, cruel and pleased with his sport, "I don't intend to make the same mistake as my predecessor. His plan to torture you for the remainder of your miserable existence was commendable, but I know that as long as you have the capacity to scream you also have the capacity to talk your way to freedom." His optics narrowed, focused upon the point of termination that approached as a lover wreathed in thanatos veils. "Such a pity ... I could listen to your screams for eternity."

"Wait!" Megatron gasped. "I - I will swear loyalty to you, Starscream, I will honour you as leader, anything, but let me live!"

"Oh, what a pathetic display!" the Seeker laughed with a hawk-shriek of voice, and then his mirth peeled from his face as a snake peels off dead scales. "You expect me to accept your word? As one liar to another, your bluff leaves much to be desired, Megatron."

"Desired? Do you not desire to see me humiliated before the army? Would you not take satisfaction from seeing me abased at your feet, oh mighty one?" Megatron pressed, seeking time as his wounds healed, yet his voice came small and cringing, wheedling and pleading for a scrap of mercy. "Would you not rather keep me alive as your servitor and slave? I would guard you, tend you, serve you well ..."

Starscream breathed a shivering sigh of delight, optics wide upon the sight in his mind. "I would dearly love to see you crawling at my feet, captive and subdued," he murmured, and his voice was like wind through gallows-trees, "but I fear you overestimate my gullibility." Hard became his face, and harder grew his voice as the ill wind builds to storm-heights. "You take me for a cretin if you think I would ever ape your weakness, and keep a traitor in my council! As for letting you guard me - hah! What kind of Autobot moron do you think I am?"

"You see through me," Megatron's crooning tone cast off its jester's robes to show the steel beneath. "but you fail to see your own weakness!"

"What weakn _uhnn!_ "

Strength renewed, Megatron rose up and struck Starscream a blow across the face that toppled him upon his back, and he lay stunned and star-gazy as Megatron pinned him there. "The love of the sound of your own voice," he rumbled, laying atop Starscream as if to bury him.

"A weakness you yourself share!" was the spat reply. Megatron rumbled wordlessly, a deep pantherish sound of hunger and power that traversed both bodies bound in one energy field, and lowered his head. Bright-bespattered lip cautioned bright-bespattered lip, and lidless eyes sought deep meaning in the rimless gulfs of hatred each optic socket contained. In the wordless communication of mingled energies, intent and intention reached pact.

Shifting with intent, Starscream arched beneath his commander, wings flexing, and over they went once. Starscream rose up like a bright-crowned tower over dark and raging seas, and folded back his wings. Megatron pulled him down, toppling tower into the roaring waters, nightwater hands engulfing his body in a great embrace. Tyranny held treachery in a fragile grasp; knife-like breaths of potential death escaped between the press of mouth to mouth, where they fought for the lion's share. They entwined limbs in challenge, thighs and shins tangling as boundaries broke down and frequencies synchronised. Megatron rolled onto his side, pulling Starscream against him as they moulded into an embrace that smouldered as core temperatures rose. Armour smeared and smelted, bright thigh clung to dark hip, ebony hand clasped ivory flank; silver lip burned through shed blood and melted into silver lip. Their bodies shimmered like desert plains; Megatron's fingers left dark paths in Starscream's armour and drew back with rings of garnet. Sky-blue traces adorned the tyrant like woad, risen ridges of painted heat. Slowly their hands met and heat-softened fingers entwined, night sky and bright sky bestarred with sparks.

Between arched palms ignited sparks of light that swelled and burst into spheres and haloes of radiance. Auroras shimmered between their laced fingers as drops of smelt trickled down their wrists, mingling metal to forge an alloy of power and deceit.

There were no more words; no need for words. The fighting clasp of hands and the strain of arm against arm spoke all. Within their grip of light-circuits their mutual heat and hate danced and flared, and soul spoke to soul until hands, optics, heads, limbs, wounds, souls, all were forgotten. They were not.

He was.

Nameless, bodiless, he was a single being with a single mind and a single desire - utter domination. He existed in a ball of light, dreaming of his dominion of the stars - he, the conqueror - a future of one.

His was Cybertron, and all its moons, and its star and all the planets there around. His was Earth, and all its energies. His was the arc of the cosmos and all the peoples enslaved beneath his hand, and all the energies tamed in his name. His were the Autobots; his slaves, his trophies and his pyres. His were the Decepticons; his chosen people, his followers, his subjects who hailed him as leader and ruler of all. His was the kingdom of the universe, and the very stars trembled at his name.

He - they - one - no more tyrant and traitor but one mind dreaming one dream.

A dream of hatred, destruction and death.

His rapture grew to overload. Two bodies could not hold all the hate of two souls: two souls could not bear to be together except to taste the other's pain. Smelt and sparks burst from joins overstrained by their combat; limbs shuddered with malfunctions of temperature, damage and delight. With a sticky rending of melting finger from dripping palm they drew apart, reluctant, almost, to return to their names.

Slow as molten iron poured from a smelter, Megatron rolled over on his back and sighed a great plume of steam, and Starscream rolled with him to lie against him, chest-vents hissing coolant vapour and helm-vents giving forth billows. They lay in silence, optics blank as they stared off into their shared dream, limbs still wrapped about one another's bodies, sticky fingers slowly teasing together in lazy aftershocks of death and overload, and they cooled.

Streaked and painted they were with one another's colours, blotched with the amethyst of floor tiles. Ruby prints embossed Megatron's hips, amber impressions adorned his chest and lapis swirled in lapidary skirls across his limbs, embellishing caresses in permanent ink upon his white back. The carbon-black of tyrant fingertips tattooed Starscream's jewelled body, as if the night-sky-hands had sought to engrave memories of touch upon his frame, and silver streaked him as if to proclaim a worth placed upon his frame that words could not express.

Silver had pressed to silver, hand upon arm, lip to lip and thigh to thigh, but where the mercury mingled the only trace that lingered was a faint and subtle echo in the power-fields, forever remembering the gentlest caress.

Megatron reached across and traced the edge of Starscream's helm, running his fingertips along the edge of the obsidian crown of his prince, and then upon the silver cheek embossed with his black caress.

"Beware the day," the tyrant breathed, "that I see loyalty in your optics ... my beautiful traitor."

**Author's Note:**

> Buccal: (From Latin, bucca 'cheek') Of or relating to the cheek.
> 
> Cerametal: (From ceramic + metal) A material comprised of or having the properties of both ceramic and metal.
> 
> Corse: (Middle English, from Latin corpus) Corpse or body.
> 
> Creance: (From French, creance) Falconry; a long fine cord attached to a hawk to prevent it from escaping.
> 
> Dermaplating: (From Greek, derma 'skin' + plating) Sensor-rich flexible armour on the face and hands of a Cybertronian.
> 
> Ectodermis: (From Greek via Latin ektos 'outside' + derma 'skin') The outer layer of skin or tissue.
> 
> Espe: (From Old French, espan) Cybertronian unit of measurement. A distance approximately the thickness of three standard-size fingers; twenty-two inches.
> 
> Flank: (Old English, from Old French flanc) The part of the body between the ribs and the hip.
> 
> Glossa: (From Greek, glossa 'tongue') Airborne-particle sensor array located in a position analogous to the human tongue.
> 
> Integument: (From Latin, integumentum) A tough outer protective layer.
> 
> Mandenta: (From Latin, mandere to 'chew' + Latin, dent 'tooth') Extension of the mandibles; paired solid ridges with sharp, sometimes serrated edges, analogous in position and often appearance to human teeth.
> 
> Pedes: (From Latin, pes 'foot') Supporting structure attached to the lower leg of a Cybertronian correspondent in location and function to the human foot but very differently jointed.
> 
> Salivacid: (From saliva + acid) A mixture of acid liquids produced in the mouth to dissolve any foreign bodies i.e. particles of dust in energon.
> 
> Superoptic: (From Latin, super 'over' + Greek optos 'seen') The ridges above the optic sensors; in a position analogous to the human eyebrow.
> 
> Tensors: (From Latin, tendere to 'stretch') A cable, pulley or other motor-ligament system designed to tighten or strech a part of the body.
> 
> Thanatos: (From Greek, thanatos 'death') Freudian - the death instinct.


End file.
